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Anne Crossfield* looks at the controversy surrounding the involvement of local government and municipalities in high-risk investments sparked off by the Hammersmith & Fulham and Orange County cases and concludes that in the US only further legislation is likely to resolve it

The consolidation of Russia's securities regime, and the added teeth given to the regulatory authority, can only benefit the market. By James Christiansen of Coudert Brothers, Moscow

The public equity offering of UK nuclear power company British Energy closed on July 10 with the privatization yielding £1.4 million ($2.18 billion) for the UK government.

The US's Republic Industries will bolster its electronic security business with the $5 billion acquisition of ADT, the largest electronic systems provider in the US.

The Republic of Italy is offering $2.1 billion of government bonds exchangeable for shares or American Depositary Shares in the state owned insurance company Istituto Nazionale delle Assicurazioni (INA). It is the first time a European government has used exchangeable securities to privatize government assets. The offering is structured as $1.06 billion of 5% Privitization Exchangeable Notes (PENs) and L1,630 billion ($1.06 billion) of 6.5% PENs.

The Rousch independent power project (IPP) reached financial close on May 31 with the US$507 million financing led by ANZ International Merchant Banking and National Development Finance Corp. Rousch is the first Pakistani project in which offshore commercial lenders have taken both political and commercial risk.

US broadcasting group Westinghouse Electric is to merge with Infinity Broadcasting in a $3.9 billion deal which requires the approval of the Federal Communications Commission. Infinity shareholders will receive 1.7 Westinghouse shares for each share held if the transaction is approved.

GUANGSHEN RAILWAY COMPANY LIMITED

IBA 26th Biennial Conference

Andrew Carmichael, a partner with Linklaters & Paines capital markets group in London, has moved to Hong Kong to oversee the regional securities practice. The firm, with offices in Singapore and Tokyo, has a total of nine partners and a 40-lawyer team doing capital markets work. "It is important the offices work together," comments Carmichael. "We have similar clients and sometimes deals can be done out of any of the offices, so it is important that we run the operation in a unified fashion." Carmichael said that it was not an official role but as one of the long-standing capital markets partners he had been selected for the job.